A year later, Lonzo’s father, the notoriouslyboisterous LaVar Ball, is claiming that Bryant isn’t a fan of his son because his son’s favorite player growing up was LeBron instead of Kobe. This seems like quite a leap, considering Bryant even managed to squash his beef with Shaquille O’Neal, who once asked him in a rap battle how his backside tastes, but here we are: LaVar Ball is saying wild stuff again.

This comes on the heels of Bryant asking Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum’s trainer, Drew Hanlen, why the Lakers didn’t draft Tatum over Lonzo. That was said after Hanlen showed Bryant a video of Tatum unleashing a series of patented Kobe Moves, inferring that the Lakers should have drafted the guy who reminds people of Kobe. That is basically the same thing as Lonzo saying he likes LeBron because they share a court vision that isn’t necessarily the same scoring approach that Kobe took.

As far as we can tell, nobody dislikes anybody else in these discussions about basketball preferences.

You’re not going to believe this, but the guy who considers everything a slight, even the suggestion that he couldn’t beat Michael Jordan one-on-one, may have interpreted Kobe’s praise of Tatum as a diss of Lonzo. If what LaVar Ball is trying to do is create a Kobe/Tatum vs. LeBron/Lonzo dynamic that doesn’t exist, he’s done well here. (I am all for this, by the way, because it would be great drama.)